How to monetize a Micro Niche Site

Please note that this method is not only for monetizing a micro niche site, but any website in general. There are three main ways that an individual could monetize their website and we’ll go over each method in detail.

1) Google AdsenseIt’s often been said that Google owns the internet what with the power of the Google search engine, along with their use of YouTube. However, as you’ll be no doubt aware, Google also allows individuals to place adverts on their website, much like this one. This is something which is fairly easy to do and once you have a quality website you can simply apply for an account and as long as it doesn’t contain adult material or illegal items and it’s well written then you’ll get an account from them. When we say well written, we mean content that hasn’t been spun by a computer. This normally stands out like a sore thumb and advertisers won’t want their adverts appearing on a site that’s poorly written or those that are bordering on illegal.

Having said that, Google Adsense and WordPress now go hand in hand with Google developing a plugin for WordPress. This allows you to link your Adsense account to the plugin which then suggest key areas on your site where you could place an advert. When it comes to Google Adsense, Google is very strict when it comes to click fraud. This in effect is clicking your own adverts in an attempt to obtain revenue, or paying people to view your website so that they’ll click your advert and you’ll make a return on it. It’s not been the first time that Google has closed down accounts as well as suing individuals that have taken part in severe click fraud.

We would recommend that you’re mindful about the location of your ads. If they’re in areas which make the content hard to read or it feels that it’s obscuring part of the page then it’ll cause people to exit out of your site and thus no revenue is gained. An ideal place to locate an add is within the side panel of the page, as well as the footer of it. By doing so, you’re not impeding their viewing of the site and it’s more of a gentle persuasion for them to click on your ad rather than it being shoved down their throats.

2) Amazon AssociatesAmazon, much like Google, is one of the biggest players online with there being a vast amount of money being spent each year through the Amazon sites around the world. Making an Amazon Associates account is easy and only takes a few minutes after which you can build links for the products which are relevant to your website i.e. a fitness product or specific book. The best thing about Amazon Associates is that whether a person buys the product that you’ve linked to or not, if they buy something else from Amazon within 24 hours of them clicking your link then you’ll get paid a commission on the product they’ve bought. The only downside is that you need to wait until you reach $100 before you’re eligible for payment. Also, your earnings for January won’t be added to your account in March and so on, so there’s a bit of a delay in your payment time. Regardless, it’s still a great way to make money especially since Amazon is such a trusted brand online. You could even treat yourself to a Kindle Fire HDX with the money you make from them.

However, much like Google, Amazon doesn’t take kindly to fraud. In short this means that you can’t order items for yourself through your affiliate link nor can people in the same household as you. You’ll still get the item shipped to your address but they won’t pay you any commission on it. In the event that you keep on doing this then they’ll end up banning your account. In the long run it’s just not worth the hassle of being banned for a few quick buck.

3) Cost per Action (CPA)CPA is a term that involves a cost per action i.e. each time an individual carries out a task you’ll be given revenue for this. This most common occurrence of this online is in the form of Sharecash which allows you to download a file after the user has completed a short offer and they refer to themselves as a PPD (pay per download) site. Sharecash is a great way to lock away high quality files on your website that you don’t want to charge people for and yet still earn money on it. On average you can expect to earn around $1 per download of your file on Sharecash. Now, supposing you had the same figures as mentioned on the home page; 1,000 visitors a month with a CTR to your Sharecash download of 4%. This would net you $40 per month in downloads on average. Whilst it’s not exactly going to make you rich over night, it’s a nice little earner especially if you have ten sites with you hitting the same numbers on each of them.

Now, regardless if you’re using Amazon Associates or CPA (or both) we would always recommend that when you’re embedding the links in your page that you select the option to open the link in a new window. If you don’t do this then it’ll move your visitor directly onto that page, and thus reducing the length of time that their own your page for.

We would also suggest you steer clear of landing your links all over the the page; we would suggest one link per type on your website, although if you’ve got multiple pages then perhaps adding them to each page may be beneficial. Either way, you’re wanting to make your website look enticing, not like one massive advertisement.

Another potential way to earn money from your website to keep up with the running costs i.e. the domain registration and also the hosting is to place a donation button on a page of your choice. The most common form of accepting online donations is through PayPal. Please note however that you will still need to declare any earnings from this and thus pay tax on it. The exception to this is if you are a registered charity. An example of the PayPal donate button can be found below, and if this page has helped you, a donation whether it be big or small will certainly help my hosting fees.